A site for me to make my favorite TV Western end the way it should have. Enjoy my scribblings. =)
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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Starting Over, Chapter 3

Author's Note: It's ten years after the end of the Express. The Civil War is over. But hings have not exactly gone according to plan for Lou and Kid. That doesn't mean they can't learn to fall in love all over again. Hope springs eternal.

Lu watched as the town called Rock Creek
slowly materialized on the horizon.Jimmy had told him this was where he’d worked for the Express, where he’d
gotten married and the place he’d left his one, true love behind when he’d
headed East to fight in the War Between The States.

He half-held his breath, hoping against
hope that his return to familiar environs might spark a memory or two. Living the last several years as a man
without a past had become a burden he wanted free of, even if it did mean
totally upsetting the life he’d built for himself since. The uncertainty, not knowing who he really
was, was killing him. Anything would do,
really, a momentary glimpse of the men he’d called brother, the scent of this
Lou he’d once supposedly loved so passionately -- though how he could have
loved someone so much and still left her to fight that damned, senseless war he
didn’t know. But, try as he might, he
remembered nothing, recognized nothing.

Despite all that, he felt an odd
quickening of his heart the closer he came to the settlement. He had the strangest urge to push his team
into a gallop, to shout… something… as he raced into town.

“Slow down, Lu,” Lydia begged, grasping
tightly at his arm.

Looking down at her, Lu noticed the
white lines of stress showing around her eyes as she tried, and failed, to hold
back her fear. It was then he realized
the horses were moving, if not at a full gallop, at the next best thing to it…
and would appear to be a runaway team to anyone watching.

“Whoa!” he called out, pulling back on
the reins to slow the animals to a sedate walk.
“Sorry,” he muttered to Lydia, who simply nodded compliantly and
released her death grip on his arm now that she felt safe. What had happened to the spirited woman who’d
been traveling with him and Jimmy these last few weeks, he wondered, the woman
only Jimmy seemed to bring out so easily?
Even as the name crossed his mind, the husky laughter of the man himself
penetrated Lu’s thoughts.

“See,” Jimmy smiled up at Lu form the back
of the palomino gelding he was riding alongside the wagon. “I told you you’d remember, once we got here.”

Lu shook his head in denial. Flapping one arm uselessly toward the town
ahead, he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t recognize any of this. I haven’t remembered anything!”

His voice rose in volume and heat with
each word, venting his frustrations on this man who’d promised so much and failed
to deliver. Jimmy just laughed some
more, pulling his hat off to slap it against his thigh before settling it once
more, securely, atop his head.

“Guess that explains why you pushed yer
animals so hard back there, starting right where we used speed up on our way in
from a run, eager ta get home and taste some of Rachel’s good cookin’,” Jimmy
smiled, once he’d conquered his laughter.
“You may not have remembered here,” he said, pointing at his head, “but
you sure remembered in here.” He
emphasized the finish with a slap of his chest, right over his heart.

A few moments later and Lu was turning
the wagon onto Rock Creek’s main street, following Jimmy into town. As they drove past the stagecoach, pulled up
in front of the hotel, Lu could tell it, too had just arrived, but from the
West, instead of the East.

He watched the people disembarking one
at a time, wondering what had led each of them to head back East. Just as he pulled even with the stage, a
pretty young woman, with painfully short hair, dressed in a worn out old calico
frock Lydia wouldn’t even have used as a rag, stepped out of the stage, leaning
wearily on the driver’s uplifted hand for a moment before turning back to speak
to someone still inside.

He’d only caught a moment’s glimpse of
her as he passed, but there was something so compelling about those large,
expressive brown eyes and that mobile mouth that he felt this indescribable
urge to run back and find out everything about her, to learn why she looked so
tired and hungry, and do something to make her smile.

Unconsciously, he turned his head back,
hoping to get another look at her. A
sudden hiss from Lydia had him snapping his head back to the front, just in
time to guide the horses around a freight wagon stopped in front of the general
store.

“Would you watch where we’re going?”
Lydia snapped, obviously trying to maintain her fragile hold on her temper, and
failing judging by the sudden flush along her cheekbones.

“Sorry,” Lu found himself muttering
again, mentally kicking himself for getting so distracted and endangering not
only Lydia, but also Carl, who rode in the wagon behind them, and was right now
leaning up against his back, checking the town out as eagerly as Lu had been.

“Pull up to that barn at the end of the
street, Jimmy interrupted Lu’s inner diatribe.
Pointing out the large structure he’d been talking about, he added, “I’ll
go roust out the livery owner for ya and let Teaspoon know we’re here.” The comment was accompanied by a mischievous
smile that had Lu’s shoulder blades itching something fierce.

**********

“I… I have a headache,” Lydia whispered
after they’d been stopped outside the livery but a few moments. “I think I’ll lay down in back for awhile.”

Without another word, she crawled into
the back of the wagon where there was a small pallet for Carl. She pulled the canvas flaps closed tight
behind her. Lu watched, wondering what
was really bothering her. She didn’t
really have a headache. She never
did. It was just an excuse to escape
from something or someone. He wondered
what she was trying to escape from this time.

He looked down at Carl, who stood at his
side, and quirked an eyebrow in question.
Carl just stared back up at him, lifting both hands up in an open
gesture and shrugging like an old man.
Lu laughed.

Holding his hand out to the boy, he
said, “ Come on, let’s go exploring! Let
yer Ma get some rest.”

Smiling happily, Carl took his hand and
soon they were walking down the boardwalk, stopping every once in awhile to
peer into a window, or comment on something they’d seen. There were two restaurants and a hotel, in
addition to a dressmaker’s shop and a feed and seed on one side of the
street. Crossing over to the other, they
peeked into a window labeled Telegraph Office.
Inside the telegraph operator was hunched over his little machine,
tapping out a message to who knew where for a businessman waiting impatiently
on the other side of the counter.

Pointing at the telegraph operator’s
dark skin and long, black hair pulled up into a pony tail, Carl asked
curiously, “Is that an injun, Pa?”

“Don’t rightly know, son,” Lu replied,
taking another look. “Mebbe so. Don’t look like no nigra I ever seen. But, if he is, he don’t look all that savage
to me.”

Moving on down the street, they came to
a general store and a barber shop, before Carl noticed Hickok disappearing into
a building labeled U.S. Marshal across the street.

“Hey!
There’s Uncle Jimmy,” Carl shouted, tugging urgently at Lu’s hand,
pulling him down off the boardwalk and out into the road. Laughing, Lu allowed the child to drag him
across the street.

But, peering through the window, he saw
Jimmy talking earnestly, yet animatedly, to an older man wearing a badge. The pretty young lady he’d seen earlier was
seated next to another woman, slightly younger, against the far wall.

Lu squatted down in front of Carl to get
his full attention, then said, “Your Uncle Jimmy’s busy, Carl. We’d best wait out here fer him.”

“He’s probably talking to my Grandpa ‘Spoon,”
a bright voice spoke up from behind them.
Spinning around, Lu found a smiling cherub of a girl sitting on a bench against
the wall, swinging her legs back and forth, while sucking on a candy
stick. She had long brown hair bound
into two straight braids that fell over her shoulders, and the brightest blue
eyes Lu’d ever seen. Those eyes seemed
hauntingly familiar to him, though he couldn’t figure out why. Standing up, she wiped her hand off on her pinafore,
then held it out to them and, with a big grin, introduced herself. “Hi!
My name’s Mary Kate.”

Lu gravely took her hand in his, careful
not to crush it as he shook it, and completed the introductions. “I’m Louis Mallory and this is my son, Carl.”

Carl stepped forward. “Nice to meet you, Mary Kate. How come you have two names?”

Lu started trying to hush the boy, but
Mary Kate was already answering him.

“Cause I’m named fer two people, both my
Grandmas. Not that I ever met them. They’re dead.”

“I’m named fer my Pa,” Carl said,
obviously happy to find something in common with the young lady.

She tilted her head in question and
asked, “But I thought he,” she pointed up at Lu, “was yer Pa.”

Carl laughed. “He’s my second Pa. My first one died ‘fore I was borned, back
during the War.”

Mary Kate looked from Carl to Lu and
back again several times, before reaching out to grab Carl’s hand and drag him
off down the boardwalk with her.

“Hey, where are you…” Lu started to
question.

“We’ll be right back,” she shouted over
her shoulder, never slowing down. Carl
just grinned and waved. Lu sighed and
settled down to sit on the edge of the boardwalk and await the children’s
return.

They didn’t go far, essentially just
until they were out of hearing. Then,
Mary Kate began chattering a mile a minute at Carl, who just nodded occasionally
in answer. Breaking off a piece of her
candy stick, Mary Kate handed it to Carl, who grinned and immediately stuck it
in his mouth. Lu laughed softly to himself,
watching the children’s antics. A moment
later they returned to his side. Carl
settled himself on the boardwalk next to Lu, while Mary Kate jumped off the
edge to stand in front of him.

Looking up at Lu, she contemplated him
for a long moment before saying, “My Pa died in the War before I was borned,
just like Carl’s. Could you be my second
Pa, too?”

Lu gasped for breath, struggling not to
cry at the sad, wistful tone in the little girl’s voice. Dropping to his knees in front of her, he
held out his arms. She rushed into them,
and he hugged her tightly to him.

“I--“ he started to say, planning to let
her down as gently as possible, but a sharp voice interrupted.

“Get your hands off my daughter, mister!”

The harsh tones were followed up by the
ominous clicking of a gun being cocked, right next to his ear.

The Author

Who am I? A Hispanic broadcast journalist, current host of Kansas Week on KPTS, and certified high school teacher, a writer and lifelong lover of all things historical, particularly the Old West. I'm married to a wonderful man from Germany and we have a 17 yr old son. We have two rescued cats and a rescued pooch, who thinks she's a 70 lb lapdog. I'm prone to talk about anything and everything that catches my interest.